April D. Ryan thanked me for interviewing her?
"I am thrilled to be on the phone with you. I am so happy that you think enough of me to interview me," said the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks and recently minted CNN contributor.
The National Association of Black Journalists' "Journalist of the Year" hasn't let "New Renown" go to her head. I borrowed that phrase from a New York Times headline: "New Renown for Reporter After Clashes at White House." In April the NYT wrote about Ryan because she became famous beyond the Beltway after former White House press secretary Sean Spicer chided her for supposedly shaking her head during one of his many bad days on the job.
Ryan, the author of "The Presidency in Black and White" and "At Mama's Knee: Mothers and Race in Black and White," spoke Monday at an MPR News broadcast journalist series. Before the MPR engagement she talked by phone to me. And before that, she made the pilgrimage to First Avenue because Ryan noted that she was a Prince fan pre-"Purple Rain." This is Part 1 of my interview with Ryan.
Q: Would you have invited Sean Spicer to the Emmys?
A: Sean can do whatever he wants to do.
Q: You're in Minnesota today so you didn't get to ask a question about President Donald Trump making it sound like the flag is more deserving of respect than humans. What question would you have asked?
A: Everyone is focused in on the racial thing. They've got that covered and it's real. In my opinion as a reporter who covers all issues presidential [including protests at the White House], that's part of the framework that the forefathers set up, you know. You challenge the system to make change. Taking the knee looks to me like challenging the system, in a different way. But the response of the White House and from this president is very different. Maybe sometime this week when I get back I could ask the White House, "Will there be an apology to the mothers the president said sons-of-bitches to?"